Here's the answer: about $200, because food punishes gear maximalism worse than any niche. Grease, steam, and flour end expensive equipment. The working kit: your phone as the A-camera, a $40 overhead mount fixed above the main cutting board, a $30 counter tripod at a 45-degree angle by the stove, a $35 daylight-balanced clip light (because dinner happens after sunset and orange kitchen light murders appetite appeal), and a $25 clip mic for voiceovers. The two camera positions get locked and never move, and that consistency of angle is half of what makes a feed read as one show. Bonus: old footage cuts seamlessly with new, so the "every focaccia this year" montage assembles itself.
The method is a disappearing act, because dinner still has to be dinner. Press record before you start and cut nothing during, since storage is cheap and re-staging a sear is not. Three mandatory shots per dish: the ingredient pile, the transformation moment, and the payoff, which is the one moment worth two takes. Voiceover happens later, at the desk, so you cook in peace.
And the honesty rules are absolute: no fake steam, no glue-instead-of-milk styling tricks, no reheating a dish and passing it off as fresh. The plate on camera is the plate you eat on camera. That's the entire covenant of recipe content, because your audience is cooking along at home.
The full system is Volume 5 of our Viral Food & Kitchen Guide.
Press record before. Cut nothing during. Eat after.